This is a common issue for any kind of artist.

I'm making this example in the world of music because I still have a lot more experience in that world, but I assume this can be translated to the world of books fairly easily. Take this made-up musician:

John J. Johnsson wants to make Arabic-cultured-melodic-inspired EDM-techno-beats with heavy-metal-inspired growling and screaming.

John probably starts out producing the kind of music he loves and wants others to like and admire him for.

John could be extremely lucky and strike "viral gold" with one of his tracks/songs and gain sudden 'pop-culture-appeal' but it is unlikely - otherwise, we'd have viral tracks of new genres every day.

What John will most likely experience is, that a few people will like his music (if he dares to post/release it anywhere) and a lot of people will not be interested.

THIS HAPPENS TO ALMOST ANY KIND OF ARTIST and most likely to 99 out of 100 new 'experimental' or 'niche' musicians/artists in general.

This will, of course, be extremely frustrating. John wants to make his music and wishes that a lot of people naturally wanted his music.

What many musicians then do is, "make their music more pop-friendly".
This is painful for anyone who doesn't by default make "pop-music", but in order to gain an audience, it may be necessary.

Some musicians produce one "pop" song, others multiple "pop" albums, before 'suddenly' changing their style/genre and surprising almost all of their fans so far. Some stay in their personal pop-genre for good. Some people make completely different music within another genre altogether, others just tone down the "niche-elements".

At some point along the road of someone's career, they have to decide to "go pop" or keep working hard on their own art and hope for the fan-base to grow naturally.

If that someone does "go pop", they then have to decide at some other point if they can "go un-pop", and how...

In the end, the choice is yours and it's not an easy choice.
Whether or not I can support you as a future reader, I can't say, but I can certainly say this: I support you in your struggle to decide, and hope you are closer to your dream scenario in the not too distant future.

I assume that communicating/collaborating with other people within the same or a similar genre/niche can help you in your work, but in the end, your work is your work.

Good luck.

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